


The game of whishes

by NaoYoshikawa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fred Weasley Dies, Fred Weasley Lives, Love, POV Hermione Granger, Sad Ending, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaoYoshikawa/pseuds/NaoYoshikawa
Summary: Everyone has desires, some simple, some deeper. But they all yearn for happiness, for suffering to pass and for the future to be better. Hermione wants it. Fred wants it too.But life is a cruel game.The rumor had suddenly died out, and even the night seemed to get darker. Ron and Harry had retired to their rooms to sleep, as had Ginny and George. Hermione, on the other hand, was stalling in the dark. She wanted to enjoy the silence broken only by the song of the cicadas. She would call it the calm before the storm, which it was. She felt lost, shrouded in fear mixed with resignation, a contradiction due to the uncertain future that lay before her. She had been forced to eliminate her memory from her parents' minds to avoid suffering, and at the age of seventeen she was living that hell again, but Hermione had promised herself she wouldn't concert too much on herself, because after all she wasn't the only one suffering.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley
Kudos: 16





	The game of whishes

It wasn't the best of times, but Fred and George were convinced that you always had to find the good side of things. Even though most of them felt their hearts were heavy, they decided that night to improvise a game. The wishing game, so George decided to call it.  
"All right, guys. It's very easy for me to pay attention," she began to speak, addressing her twin brother, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Harry sitting around the table. Molly and Arthur had said good night to them just before and advised them not to make a fuss. Ron seemed a bit nervous, as his brothers had turned off all the lights, leaving only candles lit.  
"Is this like a séance? I don't like this kind of thing," he whimpered.  
"Seance? No, it's just for moods!" said Fred of course. "Anyway, it's nothing difficult. Considering the latest events and that we don't know what the future holds, we thought we'd write down what we want to achieve when this war is over."  
Hermione looked up at him, smiling. That was a lovely idea to say the least, the ideal to convey a little hope, which seemed a bit like a mirage in recent times. But Ron, not very happy, crossed his arms across his chest, red in the face. It was all too intimate!  
"I don't like this game!"  
"I like this game. Maybe we can leave the anonymous cards," suggested Hermione, who was a little curious to know what were the deepest desires and aspirations of others.  
"Good night, Fred." George snapped his fingers. "If we all agree, we can write."  
Even Harry and Ginny were in favour of the idea, surely a different way to spend an evening that might otherwise have been heavy. From a small piece of parchment they got little pieces of paper on which to write their wish for that future, in case of victory. Because yes, they absolutely had to get out of it, all of them. Hermione thought long and hard about it. It wasn't because she didn't know what to write about, but what was it that she really wanted? Her friends seemed to think about it too, Fred himself seemed to be in a lot of trouble. That idea had been his and George's, and now he couldn't back out. He could have written some nonsense and lied about it, yes, it would have been easier.  
After about ten minutes or so, George put his little piece of paper crumpled up inside a low, wide vase.  
"Done! Now it's your turn!"  
Soon it was the others' turn to drop their wish into that vase. Ron was still a bit sulky, Hermione was quiet. She may have been trite, but she was sincere. Fred, on the other hand, seemed a bit tense and couldn't explain why.  
George stirred the cards into the vase and then took one in his hand, all slowly to create some suspense and make Ron nervous, whose face had now turned as red as his hair.  
"All right, first wish revealed: I wish the war would end soon so I could go back to normal life, play Quidditch, be with my friends. This could be Ginny's or Ron's."  
"Hey! We hadn't established that you had to guess!" his younger brother mumbled.  
"Ah well, we're nervous, I see," this time it was Fred who took one of the cards and read it. "I want to save the people I love. Well, that's definitely something Harry would say."  
But the boy just shrugged with indifference.  
It was the time of the third ticket, which Fred always took.  
"I wish my joke shop would go well," she read, arching her eyebrows, of course her brother hadn't even tried, which made Hermione laugh.  
"I wonder whose this is," she exclaimed as she looked at the twins.  
"You'll never know," gloated George, taking another note. "I wish to propose to the girl I love. Well, I see we have a lover here!" And saying that, Ron looked at Ron. The latter knew he'd be caught in the act, stupid him for writing it.  
"And why are you looking at me?!" he complained in fact. But his brother shrugged, there were only two left. Fred took the penultimate one and read it.  
"I just want to be happy."  
Anybody could've written that, but at that moment she knew it was Hermione. Perhaps it was because when he looked into her eyes, her cheeks became slightly constricted.  
"All right, there's only one left. I wonder whose is it?" said George, amused, but when he reached out to grab it, Fred drew the vase to himself. That's the coward he was. Now he was backing away like a fool.  
"Um... I just don't feel like playing anymore," he muttered, not looking any of them in the face.  
"What? Come on, that's not fair! I bet the last card is yours," Ron accused him, pointing the finger at him. But his brother just held the vase with a protective hand.  
"It will remain one of life's greatest mysteries," he exclaimed, cheering and laughing, while his sister told him to be quiet so as not to wake their parents.

The rumor had suddenly died out and even the night seemed to have become darker. Ron and Harry had retired to their rooms to sleep, as had Ginny and George. Hermione, on the other hand, was stalling in the dark. She wanted to enjoy the silence broken only by the song of the cicadas. She would call it the calm before the storm, which it was. She felt lost, shrouded in fear mixed with resignation, a contradiction due to the uncertain future that lay before her. She had been forced to eliminate her memory from her parents' minds to avoid suffering, and at the age of seventeen she was living that hell again, but Hermione had promised herself she wouldn't concert too much on herself, because after all she wasn't the only one suffering. Everyone in there was suffering and there were those who even had the strength and courage to laugh, despite everything. Hermione rose up in the darkness, feeling a warm breeze come in. The window was open, and Fred was looking out to contemplate the stars and the night. It had always been easy for him to see the beautiful side of life in any situation, laughing even when the situation seemed desperate. That evening, surprisingly, he felt melancholy, this was what happened when he started thinking too much.  
"I thought you'd gone to sleep," Hermione suddenly said. Fred thanked that it was too dark for her to see the redness on his cheeks.  
"Actually, I was going. She wanted to enjoy this calm first. We can't take it for granted anymore, can we?"  
With his arms around her chest, Hermione came closer. She felt the fear and melancholy in his eyes, a sign that Fred must have shared his fears.  
"I liked tonight's game tonight. It was nice."  
"Oh, a trifle just to distract us. To be happy," he suddenly said, crossing his arms at his chest. "You've expressed what we all want."  
Hermione blushed. All evening, without even knowing why, she searched her eyes, not finding it. Fred had seemed all too elusive, as if he was trying to hide something. And it also eluded even a brilliant mind like hers.  
"But that doesn't count. When it was your turn, you backed out," she smiled so brightly that even the moon would go pale. This wasn't the time to let go of certain sentimentality, certain impulses.  
"It's... nothing important, nothing at all," he mumbled, sighing immediately afterwards. "Anyway, you don't have to worry. We'll all be happy again. I mean, it's clear, isn't it?"  
Hermione laughed at the way he was being so genuine and sincere and positive. She envied him, wanted to be a bit more like him.  
"You're incredible, Fred," she let it slip.  
Oh, no. It wasn't incredible. He was just a silly boy who had rediscovered himself in love with her and was stalling. That was a war, he might as well not have made it, he might as well come out now!  
But then they said he couldn't afford not to.  
"Sure, of course I'm incredible," he gloated, getting a tap on the shoulder from Hermione. Sometimes all it took was just a chat to forget all the problems, at least momentarily. At that moment, Fred wanted to kiss her, so suddenly, surprising her, causing who knows what reaction. And yet he felt that wasn't the time.  
"I've got to go now, so don't be late," Hermione had felt the air become strange and confused and perhaps a little intimidated, she had felt the need to get away. "Good night, Fred."  
In the next few moments, Fred wondered if it was appropriate to grab her, hold her and whisper in her ear her wish. Instead, he took his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with what he had been afraid to say out loud.  
He smiled, deciding that when the war was over, he would let her read it.

If Hermione had to find a word to describe her mood, it would be empty.  
Empty, because being aware that war only brought death and destruction had not served to prepare her for pain. So many had lost so many. He still couldn't believe that many of his schoolmates were gone, that Remus and Tonks had left and then... and then Fred hadn't survived either.  
A twinge of pain forced her to bend over, followed by a feeling of nausea. It had been too little, too little time for her to recover, months, years, maybe a lifetime wouldn't have been enough. She suffered most of all when she thought Fred was gone. It hurt especially with him, and maybe she was too afraid to admit out loud why. That day was the funeral, one of many, yet another life torn apart and yet another family crying in desperation. But Hermione had tried to be strong that rainy day, it had to be the rock to which Ron, Ginny, all Fred's family - who were like his own - could cling to. So she hadn't cried, she had no idea where she found the strength, but she had succeeded. It was only at the end of that sad, suffocating ceremony that the girl had found the courage to look at her tombstone and let herself go a bit desperate, to silent, hidden tears. She couldn't process anyone's death, especially Fred's. For Hermione was sure that such a sunny, cheerful, sweet boy would survive. She remembered how positive he was when he told her everyone would come out of it.  
Yes, they would, but not all at once.  
"Fred..." she called in a broken, suffering tone of voice... "You didn't have to leave so soon. You shouldn't have played such a joke on us. I assumed you'd survive! I was sure I'd die instead of you!"  
When she finished talking, she remembered that summer night when she and Fred had talked, she thought back to the wishing game and wondered what she might have wished for. Whatever it was, it would never come true now.  
"It's not... it's not right," she kept talking, feeling pathetic, because after all, he couldn't hear or answer her after all. "Your family is in a lot of pain. They're gonna be in pain for a long time, and so am I, because you..."  
Yeah, because you what? I love you, much more than I've ever been willing to admit. Maybe I liked you, who knows.  
And who knows if you ever would have liked me?  
Really pathetic of me to have these regrets now.  
Hermione was sure no one was there, so she gasped when she heard footsteps behind her. It was George, so like Fred, yet so different, so grief-stricken and broken.  
"Hermione."  
"George!", the girl wiped her tears away, quick. "I... I just needed some time alone."  
He didn't answer, he got closer, looking at the name carved on his brother's headstone, it was strange and absurd to think his twin brother was gone.  
"I understand, I'd like to be alone too. Anyway, I'm here because there's something I have to give you. From Fred."  
Hermione bowed her head to the side, confused. Then she saw George reach into his pocket and pull out a yellow, crumpled note, a sign he must have been touched a lot. To top it off, she handed it to him.  
"What... What is it?" she asked confused.  
"Do you remember the wishing game? Here, this is his," he said in grief. "He gave it to me a short time ago and said that if he didn't survive, I should give it to you. "And I also remember calling him crazy and stupid, because I was sure he couldn't die..."  
George looked down, caught in the knowledge that perhaps his brother had considered the option that he would die, perhaps if he felt it. He didn't know how it was possible, yet Fred had taken it, he was really gone, leaving that note for Hermione that George had never read. He wouldn't need it, because he'd already figured it all out from the beginning.  
With a trembling hand, Hermione took the crumpled note and opened it. And she rolled her eyes as she read the sentence, her wish, which began as hers, but continued in a completely different way.  
" _I want to be happy with Hermione. _"  
She read it, and her heart lost a beat. The same heart that hurt and would always hurt. His desire included her, a life with her, a desire to make a love blossom that would perhaps last forever. But she would never know. She'd never hear his voice say those words, nothing at all.  
"He's a fool," George said, smiling with tears in his eyes. "If he really wanted to come out, he should have survived. You can't do that."  
Hermione moaned, clutching that piece of paper on her chest, close to her heart, as if she could feel it closer. She had the instinct to cry, yet at the same time she felt like she was embraced. She was grieved at the thought that they could never feel the joy of being together, but happy at the idea that they had evidently felt the same feelings.  
"Yes, you're right," she breathed. Her desire for the future had been reserved in her, and as the tears flowed, Hermione wondered if she could ever be _only happy _. Without him.____


End file.
